Gaming Control Board backs Aliante Station transfer to new owners
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Thursday
6 October 2011
1:50 p.m.
CARSON CITY – The Nevada Gaming Control Board recommended approval Thursday of a takeover of Aliante Station in North Las Vegas that will allow it to emerge from bankruptcy.
Nine banks and three private equity firms, which loaned more than $400 million for the construction and initial operation, will be the new owners.
Attorney Dan Reaser told the board the banks and equity firms are converting the loans into ownership of the hotel-casino, whose current owners are Station Casinos and the Greenspun family, which also owns the Las Vegas Sun.
The new owners will loan $45 million to keep the business open. Aliante Station has about 880 employees.
Reaser said the private equity companies are Apollo Management, Texas Pacific Group and Standard General, which will own more than 60 percent of the operation. The nine banks will hold about one-third of it.
Apollo and Texas Pacific Group already have a stake in Caesars Entertainment.
Soohyung Kim, a member of the new four-member management committee, told the board the hotel-casino needed to expand its business beyond those who live a few miles away. Other members of the management committee are James Coulter, Eugene Irvin Davis and Ellis Landau.
Kim said the only outstanding debt will be the $45 million loan for the initial operation.
Under plans previously disclosed by Station Casinos, it will continue to manage Aliante Station.
Reaser told the board the property has 202 hotel rooms, 2,000 slot machines, 36 table games, bingo, poker, a race and sports book, six restaurants, and a 650-seat showroom.
The Nevada Gaming Commission will meet Oct. 20 in Carson City to give final approval to the new owners.
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I hope Aliante Station makes it: It's truly a beautiful place with friendly employees.
However, I'm not sure how you "expand its business beyond those who live a few miles away." It is, after all, a locals casino, and will always be a locals casino, given its location and size.
How about making it a better locals casino, with better pay tables on video poker, looser slots, better food (especially in the buffet), and better promotions?
How about doing something -- anything -- with the high limit room, which has withered from neglect from the first day the casino opened (most recently with an absurd cut in video poker pay tables)?
How about preserving the peace in surrounding neighborhoods by refusing to use outrageously-large sound systems outside for events such as "Tattoo Sundays?"
It's such a well-designed place: Surely an effort to enhance its stature as a premier locals casino would generate positive results and profitability.
Under plans previously disclosed by Station Casinos, it will continue to manage Aliante Station.
That makes no sense. Have those, that drove it into the ground, manage it? How could you trust these people? Ever wonder why Alliante is the only property not retained by Stations, after the bankruptcy?